Japan the Tantric Kingdom

When it comes to the subject of tantric studies and Buddhist Studies, there seems to be a divide in the way the subject of tantra is approached in South Asian and Tibetan traditions, and in East Asia and Japan. At least on the part of Tibetan Studies scholars, it is often assumed that countries

in East Asia like Japan did not have as an in-depth exposure to tantra as countries like Tibet. Some may also assume that a phenomena of a local, Shamanistic tradition (Bön) incorporating Buddhist tantric principles into itself is a uniquely Tibetan phenomenon. One short look at the history of Japan and its indigenous deity cults (Shintō) shows these two assumptions to be completely wrong, for there are so many similarities Japan has to

Tibet as a tantric culture. Firstly, Buddhist tantra and their indigenous beliefs placed subjects’ experience within a sacred landscape, not just with pilgrimage places to go to, but also under the power of a state that had direct ties to divinity. Secondly, indigenous deity worship became

mixed with Buddhist tantra, which had syncretic results for Buddhism and its native religion so that they could both be seen as forms of Buddhism. Finally, the worship of the ḍakīṇi was connected with highly secret practices inherited from the yoginī tantras, so while highest-yoga tantra did not

become as popular in Japan as it did in Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan, it did arguably have some influence. It is my hope that though exploring these similarities to developments in Tibetan Buddhism that Japan can also be appreciated as a syncretic “tantric kingdom,” just as countries like Bhutan

are. For better or worse, both Shinto (indigenous forms of Japanese deity worship) and Bön (Tibetan indigenous forms of deity worship) have been described as “animist,” “natureworshiping” and “Shamanistic.” One such an example of this in a book on Shinto published 2006, in which William K. Bunce states, “Religion in ancient Japan was a combination of animism and nature worship… Apparently, the ancient Japanese worshiped the divine spirit in

anything, whether noble or malignant, which seemed to possess extraordinary powers or qualities which evoked awe.” While the latter might be true to an extent, the simplistic 1 categories of “animism” and “nature worship” are a bit problematic and harken back to mistaken concepts in Religious Studies which place a false progression from “animism” and “nature worship” to polytheism and finally to monotheism. As a study on Shintō from 1926 states, We often see a phase of religion among nature peoples which tells us that in that stage of religious development the object of their worship

is one that directly appeals to our senses… Thus also the visible Heaven itself, the high awe-inspiring mountain itself, the roaring sea itself, the tremendous cataract itself, and so on, are all worshipped as divine. This is what we call simple or original nature worship or animism, or pre-demonism in general…2 Next the book goes into the outdated categories of “fetishism and phallicism,” and continues to reference arguably useful

information, such as the fact Amaterasu gives her mirror to her grandson and tells him to worship it as if it were her, though it is then called a “fetish.” In a later chapter, the book even delves into “primitive monotheism.” It is my perspective that along with 3 these categories of

“primitive monotheism” and “fetishism,” we can also do away with “animism” and “nature worship.” In any case, there is a lot of controversy over whether Shintō really existed as an independent religion prior to the Meiji restoration when Buddhism was separated from it and the government

emphasized the cult of the divine emperor more widely and intensely than it had been previously. The earliest references to “Shintō” come in its sacred texts, the Nihon-shoki (720) and Kojiki (712), works on their local mythologies that their royal court commissioned in

William K. Bunce, “Gods, Rituals, and Beliefs in Early Shinto, in Religions and Religious 1 Movements: Shinto. Jeff Hay, ed. (New York: Thomson Gale, 2006), p.34. Genchi Katō, A Study of Shintō, The Religion of the Japanese Nation (Tōkyō: The Zaidan-2 Hōjin-Meiji-Seitoku-Kinen-Gakkai, 1926),

p.7. “…if we think of what Ame-no-Minakushi-no-Kami [the original god] is in the traditions of 3 ancient Japan, we can with some degree of probability conclude that Ame-no-Minakanushi-noKami is the God of the so-called primitive monotheism indigenous to the soil of Japan and we find little or no trace of importation from China of such monotheism…” (Genchi Katō, Ibid., p.66) Page of 2 29

order to legitimize their state to foreign eyes and invigorate their native literary culture when faced with China’s. Many authors cite this as evidence for the early existence of Shintō, though 4 Kuroda suggests that one might more accurately refer to it as a form of Taoism at this time. 5 This is because Shintō was a word for Taoism in China, and at this time, Taoist practices had been imported to Japan. Also, the imperial regalia important to Shintō, as well as the vocabulary used around the shrine, could have Taoist influence. Moreover, Shintō also referred to the worship of

local deities in China, and “Since the Nihon shoki was compiled with knowledge of China in mind, it is hard to imagine that its author used the

Chinese word Shinto solely to mean Japan’s indigenous religion.”6 Whether or not Shintō can be justifiably called an independent religion at this time, the point here is that Japan’s indigenous beliefs, at least the ones that were first written down, were closely tied to the state because their royal family’s divine heritage was tied to their right to rule. The texts degenerated the deities of rival clans like Izumo ’s Okuninushi, for instance, because the “claim to national hegemony by both regional powers was also promoted through ideology, in which the divine associations of the

clan leaders and sponsorship of the local deities played an important part.” This close association is also seen in the national importance of the Ise 7 shrines, of which the central one is devoted to Amaterasu, the sun goddess who is thought to be the ancestor of the royal family. Funke, Mark C. “Hitachi no Kuni Fudoki,” in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 49, No. 1, Spring 4 1994 (Sophia University,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2385502, accessed 17/01/2013), 1. “Japan’s ancient popular beliefs were not so much an indigenous religion but merely a local 5 brand of Taoism” (Kuroda, Toshio; James C. Dobbins; Suzanne Gray. “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion,” in Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, Winter 1981, p.7) Kuroda, “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion,” p. 5.6 William H. Coaldrake, Architecture and

Tibet’s indigenous religions or beliefs also have elements that are tied to their royal family. It was thought, for instance, that they were first ruled by a lineage of kings who came down from the heavens by using a rope or ladder. Each generation ruled until his son was old enough to ride a

horse, at which point he would return to the heavens through his sacred cord. The eighth king was buried under the ground when he died, since he lost his protective deity and his sacred cord was cut. “The cult of the divine king included the belief that he was 8 endowed with magical power and a special significance… The king represented the continually reborn essence of the divine ancestor, who was reincarnated in each king at the age of

maturity and remained incarnated in him until his son reached the same age of maturity…” 9 The king also had a personal deity (a “body spirit” or sku bid) who maintained his authority and order in the realm. “One of the primary responsibilities of the royal priests and ministers, then, seems

to have been the maintenance of the king’s health, for if the king became ill or if the body spirit was determined otherwise to be displeased, the safety of the kingdom and even of the universe was in jeopardy.” One finds similar correlations between the heath of the 10 rule and of the nation,

and the pleasure or displeasure of gods, at other times in Tibetan history, and even into Buddhist contexts. For instance, the story behind a sang or smoke-offering purification ritual is that one time, a woman buried the corpse of a “polluted child” (possibly referring to a physical deformity), which offended the local land deity (sa bdag), which then made the king sick and there was an epidemic in the land. The Indian tantric adept

Donald S. Lopez Jr., Introduction to Religions of Tibet in Practice. Edited by Donald S. Lopez,8 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997), p.4. Lopez, Religions of Tibet in Practice, p.4.9 Lopez, Ibid., p.5.10 Page of 4 29

Padmasambhava found the cause behind this epidemic and taught this smoke-offering ritual as a purifying counteragent. 11 Toni Huber relates about the above-mentioned eighth king, the person of the king was assimilated into the mountain through his sku-bla, the ruler’s personal guardian deity, which was identified with the mountain itself. The sku-bla, as deity and mountain, was conceived of as the support of the ruler’s vital principle. The king and his sku-bla were reunited after death when his body was buried in the earth mound tomb, which itself was assimilated to both king and

mountain.12 According to Toni Huber, this indicates a shared identity between a place, person and deity. Indeed, their whole landscape is filled with different deities that have a vague relationship with different places and physical objects. “These ideas are supported by both long-standing aspects of the pre-Buddhist world-view and later Tibetan Tantra. In all these aspects we find expressed forms of an active continuity of existence between person, places and their physical substances, and the vital powers of divine beings that are believed to inhabit the environment.”13 Perhaps

because of these characteristics, Bön, often conceived of as the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, has described as a primitive, animistic religion, somewhat similarly to descriptions of Shintō. As Zeff Bjerken states, “All the common categories we have seen used by modern scholars to describe

Bon (‘animism,’ ‘shamanism’, theism,’ and even ‘syncretism’) deserve special attention as Orientalist formulas for describing religion as ‘the Other’ or ‘the primitive.’” Scholarship has vastly improved, though, and according to Lopez, “Bon is not the 14

Sophie M. Pickens, Divine Blue Water: The Contamination Purifying Smoke Offering 11 Performed by the Great Master Padmasambhava: A Buddhist Adaptation of a Tibetan Purification Ritual (M.A. thesis at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Kathmandu Univeristy, 2012). Toni Huber, “Putting the Gnas

Back into Gnas-skor: Rethinking Tibetan Pilgrimage Practice,” 12 in Sacred Spaces and Powerful Places In Tibetan Culture. Edited by Toni Huber (Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1999), p. 79. Huber, Ibid., p. 82.13 Zeff Bjerken, “Cracking the Mirror: A Critical Genealogy of Scholarship on Tibetan Bon and 14 the ‘Canonical’ Status of The Crystal Mirror of Doctrinal Systems,” in The Tibet Journal. Vol. 23 (Library of Tibetan Works and

pre-Buddhist tradition of Tibet, not Tibetan ‘folk religion’ and not a primitive animism. It is perhaps described as a heretical sect of Tibetan Buddhism, with its own creation myths, cosmology, and pantheon…” It may be conceived somewhat similarly to Watarai Shinto in that 15 it is a self-consciously non-Buddhist tradition, believes itself to predate Buddhism and even be its source, see Buddhism as an alien religion and wish to return

to their past glory that predates its introduction, and contains a number of practices of seemingly Buddhist origin. This will be explored more fully in a subsequent section of this paper. Still, what is of relevance at the moment is that similar concepts of the holiness of certain places

present itself in both traditions, and both traditions emphasize the need for purity so as to not offend certain deities. Concerning Shintō, “the kami select certain places where they will descend to earth, thereby rendering them holy,” and those locations become the special 16 abode of that

divinity. These locations may be an inspiring natural phenomena such as a waterfall or rock, though they later primarily were thought to reside in shrines. These deities were sometimes “unpredictable, even dangerous, particularly when they were offended by pollution (tsumi), such as the

pollution associated with blood and death.” Because of the 17 sacristy of these locations, “worshipers must purify themselves before entering shrine precincts or taking part in festivals.”18 There are also Buddhist elements in the establishment of state control and in conceiving of sacred places

(two aspects of what might be called a “sacred cosmos”) for both countries as well. The Tibetan king Trisong Detsen who is credited with establishing Buddhism in Tibet is

Lopez, Religions of Tibet in Practice, p.30.15 Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan, p.27.16 Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred Geography 17 (Honolulu: U. Hawaii Press, 1999), p.142. Littleton, C. Scott. Shinto: Origins, Rituals, Festivals, Spirits,

Sacred Places (Oxford: Oxford 18 University Press, 2002), 25. Page of 6 29 considered an emanation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara; he married two Buddhist princesses —one from China, the other from Nepal—and each were

considered to be emanations of the bodhisattva Tara. Similarly, Prince Shōtok, who is credited with bringing Buddhism to Japan, 19 is thought to be a bodhisattva. Their notion of the sanctification of particular locations is also informed by Buddhist traditions going back to the religions’

founding. According to Schopen, after the historical buddha died, his “relics themselves were thought to retain—to be ‘infused with,’ impregnated with—the qualities that animated and defined the living Buddha.” He also relates that it was 20 also thought that the Buddha’s presence lingered in

places he had lived in life—“the Buddha, although dead, was somehow actually present at the places where he was formerly known to have been.” This notion also came to encompass his bodily relics, so it came to be that also 21 at sites that housed his relics—even if he had never been there in

life—“the Buddha was thought to be actually present and alive.” Perhaps because of this, deeds done to stūpas are 22 thought to have the same good or bad karmic consequences as those done to buddhas or bodhisattvas or arhats (the “noble sangha”), stealing wealth belonging to a stūpa causing one

to be born in the lowest hell, and offerings made to one being equal to making offerings to an actual buddha, for “there is no distinction between a living Buddha and a collection of relics— both make the sacred person equally present as an object of worship.”23

Matthew Kapstein, “The Royal Way of Supreme Compassion,” in Religions of Tibet in 19 Practice, edited by Donald Lopez p.72-73. Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 20 1997), p.127. Shopen, Ibid., 125.21 Ibid., 125-126.22 Ibid., 132.23 Page

Relics have also come to occupy an important part of Tibetan Buddhism since many meditation masters are said to leave behind relics that are seen as evidence of their realization of reality—sometimes images are seen in their bones, or certain parts of their body failed to burn when they were

cremated. Bits of cloth from the clothing of meditation masters, their personal belongings, hair, and even their feces are saved as objects of worship. This is part of the general tantric worldview of Tibetan Buddhism wherein one sees one’s personal spiritual master (guru) as a fully

realized buddha. This is as seen in a story concerning the way one of Drefyus’ teachers related to his guru, as described in The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: He served his teacher, bringing him meals and cleaning his room. In the morning, he would rise first and wake his teacher. Geshe Rab-ten

also insisted on taking out the chamber pot that his teacher used during the night. Every morning, he would partake of his teacher’s substance as a blessing… Such behavior exemplifies a kind of bhakti, a total devotion in which one intensely feels a union with the object of one’s love. It also

illustrates the guru’s divinization.24 One not only sees one’s guru as divine in the tantric context, however, but the whole world as divine. All sounds are mantras (indivisible sound and emptiness), all forms are the form of the deity (indivisible form and emptiness), and all thoughts are the

dharmakāya. This attitude is clearly reflected in any daily tantric practice (sadhāna) one might do in order to realize this—as stated in a short Avalokiteśvara practice, “My own and others’ bodies and appearances are the Noble One’s body, sounds are the melody are the six syllable [[[mantra]]]’s

melody, and thoughts are the expanse of great gnosis.” When one finishes one’s practice session of 25 meditating on the deity, Jamgon Kongtrul (Byams mgon khong sprul, 1813-1899) explains: When you arise from that, rest evenly in the awareness that everything included in the domain of the five elements—all things that appear as self and other: rocks, mountains, cliffs and so on—is the body of the Noble Great Compassionate One. All sounds—

Georges B.J. Dreyfus, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan 24 Buddhist Monk (Berkley, University of California Press, 2003), p.62-63. “bdag gzhan lus snang ‘phags pa’i sku/ sgra grags yi ge drug pa’i dbyangs/ dran rtogs ye 25 shes chen po’i klong" (thang stong rgyal

po,Thugs rje chen po’i bsgom bzlas ‘gro don mkha’ khayb ma (Questa, New Mexico: Pal nyammay kagyupay sangha monlam chenmo, p.20) Page of 8 29 whether they are conjoined with the life force faculty of sentient beings or, as the sounds of the elements, not so conjoined—are the speech of the Noble One, the melodic resonance of the six syllables. All thoughts are the mind of the Noble One—awareness and emptiness, free of fabrication, the

innate character of the dharmakāya. In all activities—walking, sleeping, sitting or talking—abandon mundane, attached ways of thinking.26 Seeing the world as divine is a practical aspect of tantric meditation practice, but it is supposed to be based upon a philosophical view of how the world

actually is, as opposed to some kind of mental exercise. This is clearly reflected in works such as Rongzom Paṇḍita’s (rong zom paṇḍita, 1012-1088) Establishing Appearances as Divine (snang ba lhar bsgrub) and Ju Mipham’s (ju mi pham, 1846-1912) Beacon of Certainty (nges shes sgron me). Both

these texts reference the well-known concept, alluding to Yogācāra philosophy, that the same river may be seen by hell beings to be molten iron, by hungry ghosts to be puss and blood, and by gods to be nectar. 27 According to Mipham, this corresponds to more subtle levels of perception that are

due to lesser degrees of obscurations due to afflictions. When the apprehension of pus is removed, It is realized to be delusion, and by cultivating that Water appears in its place. A great bodhisattva [on the] pure [stages] Sees countless buddha fields in each drop of water, And water itself as Māmakī. On the bhūmi where the two obscurations are finally abandoned, One sees the great taste of coalescence.28

Jamgon Kongtrul, “The Continuous Rain of Benefit to Beings: An Abbreviated Annotation of 26 All-Pervading Benefit of Beings, the Meditation and Recitation of the Supreme Noble Avalokiteshvara,” in Trainings in Compassion: Manuals of Meditation of Avalokiteshvara, translated by Tyler Dewar

(Boulder: Snow Lion Publications, 2004), p.71. Rangzom Chokyi Zangpo, Establishing Appearances as Divine. Translated and edited by 27 Heidi Köppl (New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2008), p.100-103, and Ju Mipham, Beacon of Certainty. Translated by John Whitney Petit (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1999), Topic 6, p. 219-227. Ju Mipham, Beacon of Certainty. Translated by John Whitney Petit (Boston: Wisdom 28 Publications, 1999), p.

This is also related to the teaching of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra, wherein the Buddha describes the purity of buddhas’ fields of activity, and Śāriputra thinks that our buddha must be inferior to them since our world is so impure. The Buddha then touches his toe to the earth, and everything

appears as a pure land, and he states that things only appear in an impure way in order to bring maturity to beings; also, if things appear in an impure way, it is because impure minds are what are perceiving them. Although the search for an authentic teacher—one with some degree of

realization—is emphasized in meditation manuals like Dza Patrul’s The Words of My Perfect Teacher and Jamgon Kongtrul’s The Torch of Certainty (nges shes sgron me), it is also understood that one’s own attitudes are actually most important to one’s religious practice, rather than the nature of outer objects themselves. The Words of My Perfect Teacher describes an oft-told story of a woman who demanded that her son bring back a relic of the Buddha from his trips to India, but when forgets to bring one back, he gives her a dog’s tooth and lies, saying that it came from the Buddha. She

took it and placed it on her altar, and faithfully made offerings and prostrations to it; she eventually attained realization and the ordinary dog’s tooth produced small relics from itself. Likewise, Jamgon Kongtrul asserts in his Torch of Certainty: 29 In reality, your guru may be an ordinary

being or a manifestation of a Buddha or Bodhisattva. But if you can pray to him while meditating that he is the Buddha, all the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and yidams will enter the body, speech and mind of your Vajrayana master and work for the benefit of all beings.30 This plays into not only how one relates to one’s own perceptions, but also has had implications for how Tibetans conceive of their own historical narrative, where their kings who

Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher. Translated by the Padmakara 29 Translation Group (Boston: Shambhala, 1998), p.173-174. Jamgon Kongtrul Lordo Taye, The Torch of Certainty. Translated by Judith Hanson (Boston: 30 Shambhala, 1977), p.126. Page of 10 29 brought Buddhism to the country are seen as emanations of divine beings. Indeed, the whole 31 world they live in is replete with various unseen gods

and demons they must make offerings to, buddhas and bodhisattvas to supplicate for aid, different incarnate masters and wandering yogis who may have various degrees of realization of the nature of reality and magic powers (siddhis). It could also be argued that they live within a divine maṇḍala,

for sacred sites have the blessings of various deities and powerful meditation practitioners, and their various rulers are thought to be emanations of various bodhisattvas. Not only are their kings of the past thought to be emanations of bodhisattvas, but so are various gurus, and heads of

monasteries (they are often reincarnate masters or sprul sku—a word which also means nirmanakāya, the emanation body of buddhhood). Even if this is not actually the case on the mundane level, it is arguably better or more true for the practitioner to imagine this is the case, since all beings

have buddhanature (tathāgatagarbha) and everything actually is pure even if we do not perceive it that way because of our own impure perceptions. This, combined with the notion that one can even attain enlightenment in one lifetime through tantric methods, meant that Tibetans live in a sacred world where enlightenment is near, and enlightened beings are just around the corner, even if we are in a degenerate age. On a similar note, some Japanese texts eventually held it to be the “Original Land of Dainichi” (Dainichi-hongoku), or the land of the primordial, esoteric buddha

Mahāvairocana, and according to the Keiran jūyōshū (1318-19) by Tendai Buddhist Kōshū (1276-1350), the nine sections of the capital correspond to the nine assemblies of the Kongōkai mandala (representing Dainichi’s wisdom), the five provinces of the central region around the capital to the Taizōkai mandala (representing Dainichi’s compassion), and the seven circuts (dō) of Japan to the Soshitsuji mandala (representing the ultimate oneness

Dza Patrul, for instance, states (as general knowledge) that the king Songtsen Gampo was an 31 emanation of Avalokiteśvara, and his two princesses from China and Nepal were emanations of Tārā, and the later king Trisong Detsen was Mañjuśrī. Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher,

of Dainichi’s wisdom and compassion). In this way, the whole of Japan becomes a representation of Dainichi’s Dharma realm.32 This was essentially the cumulation of a long development process concerning how kami were conceived of in Japanese esoteric Buddhism. At first, kami were held to be

potentially malevolent beings that needed to be tamed by buddhas. Then, some were taken as Dharma protectors (gods that are incorporated in the Buddhist pantheon as mundane, but powerful beings that are charged with protecting the teachings). Later, some kami were taken to be emanations of the buddha Dainichi (Mahāvairocana) or various bodhisattvas, and in turn, some claimed that since kami are emanations of a tantric deities, they are

superior to the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni, since he taught the exoteric teachings; some also claimed that kami were the original, and buddhas their manifestation, Japan thus being the original source behind the Buddhist teachings (these later two stages will be elaborated on shortly). “The acknowledgement of Japan as ‘the land of kami’ in these texts indicates that the discourse on shinkoku was increasingly affirming the prominent role

of kami in Japan where Buddhism 33 could flourish even in the age of mappō under their protection.” 34 35 The first stage is similar to how the local, indigenous deities are portrayed in Tibetan Buddhist narrative prior to their subjugation by the Indian adept Padmasambhava. When the king tried to

establish Buddhism there with the help of the Indian scholar Śāntirakṣ̣ita, the local deities created many obstacles, such as destroying whatever parts of the monastery were built once workmen had finished their work for the day. Padmasambhava, with his tantric magic

Breen and Teeuwen, Shinto in History, p.97.32 This is a reference to the belief that Japan was created by and is protected by kami. 33 The degenerate age, or the degenerate times; it is the belief that we are in a time period of 34 increasing warfare, negative emotions and so on, Buddhism is in decline, and enlightenment harder or even impossible to attain. Meri Arichi, “Sannō Miya Mandara The Iconography of Pure Land on this Earth,” in J

apanese 35 Journal of Religious Studies Vol. 33/2 (Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 2006), p.327. Page of 12 29 powers, subdued the local deities at specific locations on the Tibetan landscape. In the hagiographies of great meditators, one finds a number of events where malevolent spirits are forced into becoming Dharma protectors, or freely offer their services and vow to protect the teachings.

Similarly, some kami wished for for Buddhists to help liberate them from their kami state, as seen in a statement by the oracle of Tado: “I am the kami of Tado. Because of my an account of an oracle of the kami of Tado, “I am the kami of Tado. Because I have committed grave offenses over many kalpas, I have received the karmic retribution of being born a kami… Now I wish to escape from my kami state once and for all, and take refuge in the

Three Treasures of Buddhism.” Essentially, Buddhism took over preexisting sacred sites, “arguing 36 that the native kami were violent and

untrustworthy because of their delusion; therefore they needed to be transformed into Buddhist entities, so as to be pacified and rendered benevolent.” There arose various shrine-temples (jingūji) “founded by itinerant mountain 37 ascetics at the request of provincial lords and village

heads, whose local kami asked to be saved from their kami state by means of Buddhist ritual. The idea behind these shrine-temples was that kami could be rendered both more beneficent and more powerful when served a menu of Buddhist services.”38 Following this, the kami Hachiman was identified

as a Dharma protector, and later as bodhisattva, and this was followed “by the adoption of tutelary kami (chinju) by temples all over the country… The third stage in this process began in the ninth century, which saw the origin of the notion that some kami are skillful means, emanations of

buddhas, bodhisattvas or devas Mark Teeuwen and Fabio Rambelli, ed. and intro., Buddhas and Kami In Japan: Honji suijaku 36 as a combinatory paradigm (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), p. 10. Teeuwen and Rambelli, Buddhas and Kami in Japan, p.11.37 Mark Teeuwan, “The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice,” in Shinto in History: 38 Ways of the Kami. Edited by John Breen and Mark Teeuwen (London: Curzon Press,

who ‘soften their light and mingle with the dust’ (wakō dōjin) in order to lead us to the Buddhist Way.” Then, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this further developed to the point that 39 kami that are related to Amaterasu are considered to be emanations of Dainichi, the primordial buddha that represents intrinsic enlightenment in Japanese tantric Buddhism. Since these kami “are declared to be the supreme divinities of the

esoteric teaching, while Śākyamuni was ‘merely’ a teacher of exoteric (and less profound) doctrines,” as claimed in the above40 mentioned Keiran

jūjōshū. These later theories concerning the kami as manifestations of Dainichi hinge on new understandings of the Ise Shrines wherein other kami are manifestations of Amaterasu, and that Amaterasu is Dainichi, and so Japan, land of kami, is also a land blessedly close to the esoteric buddha. These ideas are not just theoretical, but based in religious practices that developed. One early text exposing these topics is the Nakatomi harae kunge (c.12th century), “widely regarded as the first text of ‘Ryōbu Shinto’—a term referring to theories and practices handed down in various

lineages, based on the association of the Inner and Outer Shrines of Ise with the Taizōkai and Kongōkai mandalas.” Even the characters within the word Ise—“I” and “Se” 41 came to mean the “Tantric and Shintō equivalents of the Chinese yin and yang… In other Ryōbu Shintō texts, the two

principles of yin and yang (and the two maṇḍalas) are associated with the two primordial Shintō deities Izanami and Izanagi, whose lovemaking brought about a Genesis of sorts.” 42

Mark Teeuwan, “The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice,” p.95.39 Mark Teeuwan, Ibid., p.96.40 Ibid., p.99.41 Bernard Faure, “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryū, and Ryōbu Shintō,” in Tantra in 42 Practice, edited by David Gordon White (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000),

In any case, the Nakatomi manual was an esoteric explanation of a purification formula used in rituals performed by Yin-Yang masters (onmyōji) and shrine priests. It explains some 43 Shintō mythological events from a Buddhist-oriented esoteric perspective—for instance, Amaterasu sending Ningi to Earth to pacify it is likened to Dainichi sending Śākyamuni to teach. The text itself argues that the kami are the spirits of buddhas, and it “is

through the kami that Dainichi activates the Nakatomi formula with his ‘permeating power’ (jinzū).” Its concept of 44 impurity is also not just in terms of ritual or physical impurity, but also goes into a very Buddhist understanding that the duality of pure versus impure is not ‘real,’ but is a projection of our own conditioned minds. For the esoteric practitioner, then, purification is not so much a method of removing external impurity, as

a meditation practice tailored to remove his mind from its conditioned state. If carried out correctly, to perform purification is therefore ‘the same as to return to the wondrous state of the syllable a, in which everything is unborn (aji honpushō),’ and it will lead the practitioner to

‘instantaneous enlightenment.’45 This concept of the the syllable a symbolizing the unborn is important to tantric Buddhism. In just one of many possible examples, Sahajavajra, a commentator on the scholar and adept Maitripa (whose teachings are a source for several Tibetan lineages) explains

that mental engagement in the syllable A (a play on the word amanasikāra, meaning either mental engagement in “a,” or lack of mental engagement) would mean that everything is ‘A’—primordially unborn—‘A’ being the seed syllable of identitylessness. Hence, all such mental engagement refers to a

lack of nature. Alternatively, the meaning of amanasikāra is as follows. ‘A’ stands for luminosity and mental engagement (manasikāra) is a word for self-blessing. In this way, amanasikāra means to bring forth the pure awareness that is the continuous flow of the nondual inseparable union of prajñā and compassion, which has the character of self-blessing with or within inconceivable luminosity.46

Teeuwan, “The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice,” p.99-100.43 Ibid., p.101.44 Teeuwan, “The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice,” p.101.45 Karl Brunnhölzl, Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions (Boson: Snow Lion 46 Publications, 2007), p.133-134. Page

One can thus see that the syllable A has a profound meaning. To be fair, syncretism happened in Tibetan Buddhism as well. The smoke offering ritual mentioned earlier in this paper is one such example, incorporating Buddhist elements into a preBuddhist practice, with both mundane and supramundane aims. Another interesting example of Tibetan syncretism is in the figure of Confucius, or in Tibetan, Gongtse (gong tse). In Tibet, Confucius came to be thought of as a their source for Chinese astrology, and they call him the Magical King (‘phrul gyi rgyal po) who rides a tiger. It is said that Mañjuśrī was sent to tame the Chinese people through science and calculation, and in order to do so, he took on the appearance of a divination turtle; at this time, divination came to be part of Buddhist practices. 47 Later, “Owing to the compassion of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, Kong tse ‘phrul introduced the rituals to Tibet.” Finally, 48 The idea that Kong spu tsi alia Kong tse ‘phrul [i.e., Gontse] is regarded as the incarnation of Bodhisattva Mañjugośa was integrated into a ritual called Kong tse gso mchod ‘dod yon sprin spung (Prayers and Offerings to Kong tse,

a Heap of Cloud of Desirable Qualities) in which Confucious became the main deity of worship. Discovered by Feringard D. Lessing in the 1930s in the Yunghe Kung… palace temple situated in the Chinese capital, the text of this ritual was written around the middle of the eighteenth century. The

iconography of the ‘Bodhisattva or future Buddha’ demonstrates the traditional association of the Chinese sage Confucius with Sino-Tibetan divination: he sits on the ‘cosmic’ tortoise, is surrounded by 100,000 sages (drang srong), and is venerated for his role as the protector of the science of divination (gtsug lag).49 What is perhaps most alarming in the syncretic Shinto-Tantric Buddhist beliefs at the Ise shrines is the integration of the concept of the ḍākiṇī into the Shinto and Buddhist pantheons. It is normally thought that Japan did not receive the “highest yoga tantras,” those that picture deities in sexual union and have suggestive, violent, and transgressive imagery and so a comparison between Tibetan and Japanese tantric lineages and practices would not be very Shen-yu Lin, “The Tibetan Image of Confucius,” in Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines (http://47 himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_12_07.pdf, accessed May 13, 2016), p.121. Shen-yu Lin, “The Tibetan Image of Confucius,”

fruitful. However, the concept of the ḍākiṇī, so central to that genre, has an undeniable presence, in every sense the word is used in the Indian

and Tibetan contexts—cannibal demoness, seductress, potentially wrathful source of power and wisdom to be supplicated, goddess, bodhisattva, and enlightened manifestation. In his chapter on “The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice,” Teeuwen touches on the subject of the ḍākiṇi in the context of the esoteric court ritual of the imperial enthronement initiation. In this initiation, the imperial regent shows the emperor a few

mudras (sacred hand gestures) and mantras (spells) he must perform on the way to the throne. This ritual was also performed within the Tendai and Shingon Buddhist lineages, though, in a class of extremely secret instructions. The mantra they recite is that of Dakini. Teeuwen explains that this

is striking because “According to Shingon lore, dakini are flesh-eating demons who have the ability to foresee the death of a human being six month in advance, and who then proceed to eat out their victims’ hearts, without killing them.” He explains that Dainichi is said to have 50 tamed them, so

that if they instruct their victims in tantric Buddhism until their deaths, they are also allowed to eat their flesh. “The dakini were included in the outer enclosure of the Taizōkai mandala, and were believed to grant unlimited powers to those who successfully invoked them. Moreover, dakini

were in Japan associated with foxes (and, of course, with the kami of foxes, Inari), perhaps because they were traditionally accompanied by jackals (yakan).”51 This is fairly similar to how they are portrayed in Indian and Tibetan tantric Buddhism, it being a concept with Indian origins. They

are essentially witches that live in charnel grounds and feed on human flesh. As later systems of Buddhist and Hindu tantra (namely, the yoginī tantras) developed, though,

Teeuwen, “The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice,” p.105.50 Teeuwen, Ibid., p.106.51

The compilers Hindu and Buddhist Tantras were doing more than simply cataloguing witchcraft lore. Rather, they enshrined it at the heart of their practice. Here, we must recall the soteriological function that the tantric yoginīs played for the male tāntric practitioner. The Hindu Tantras

frequently evoke the two alternatives faced by males with regard to these beings: while most are doomed to become “food for the yoginīs,” [another word for ḍākiṇī] the courageous tantric initiate known as a Virile Hero (vīra) could instead become “darling of the yoginīs.”52 Some texts even

portray yoginīs are even thought of as essentially liberating their victims from their karmic burden through consuming their flesh, freeing them, and one finds similar ideas in Tibetan Buddhism, “in which the ravening bird- and animal-headed ḍākinīs play this precise role: by tearing his body apart,

they cause the light of gnosis to dawn in the advanced practitioner’s consciousness.”53 In Tibet, ḍākiṇī also came to be a generic term for an awakened female practitioner, though the term often has an ambiguous sense, and one may not know whether a particular person or spirit is an

“awakened dākiṇī” (ye shes kyi mkha’ ‘gro ma) or “flesh-eating dākiṇī” (sha za mkha’ ‘gro ma). This distinction plays out in the Tibetan adept and lineage holder Khyungp Naljor’s journey to idea to meet with gurus, where he relies on a dākiṇī as a teacher: When he meets her in her charnel ground, she is hovering in the sky, wearing bone-ornaments and carrying other tantric implements. He prostates to her and she yells that she is a cannibal dākiṇī, so he had better run. He still begs for teaching, and she demands gold as payment and when he gives it to her, she throws it away.

Khyungpo has some doubts—perhaps she actually is a cannibal—and then she flies up to space, emanates a celestial palace; they have a tantric feast offering and she bestows initiations on him. Following this, she takes him up to the sky, where she shows him a giant golden mountain, and he

wonders whether it is a real place or the dākiṇī’s magical emanation. She replies, When you realize that your many thoughts of anger and desire, Faure, “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryū, and Ryōbu Shintō,”, p.11-12.52 Faure, Ibid., p.12.53

Which churn the sea of existence, Have no intrinsic nature, Everything becomes a land of gold, my child. When you meditate that magiclike phenomena Are like a magical illusion, You will attain magiclike manifest enlightenment; This through the force of devotion!54 While their role might not be

identical in Japan, it still does seem like the Japanese Dakini does have a dual role as feminine embodiment of wisdom or source of power, and cannibalistic demoness. Sarah Fremerman wrote a recent PhD dissertation on a tantric, form of Avalokiteśvara that is sometimes equated with Dakini, Nyoirin. Nyoirin has a seductive charm, but leads those she seduces to the pure land. She also holds a wish-granting jewel which eventually gets

equated with one of the three imperial regalia (the mirror, sword and jewel), and is known to specialize in female sexuality, this-worldly happiness, and harmony for esoteric (mikkyō) and Yin-yang divination (onmyōdō). She went through a number of different guises: 55 …eleventh-century esoteric Buddhist rituals identified Nyoirin as the formerly demonic, flesh-eating goddess Dakiniten; later, by the fourteenth century, Dakiniten had become the

central deity for the main Shingon imperial ordination ceremony, administered by Ono monks, which revealed Nyoirin to be a form of both Dakiniten and the kami Inari…, who was in turn understood as a transformation body of the sun goddess Amaterasu…56 She also became connected with Daoism and the worship of the Big Dipper, and the term “jewel woman,” referring to her since she holds a jewel, can also refer to a beautiful woman or a Daoist

immortal in Chinese literature, leading to even more associations across different traditions. Sarah Freedman’s dissertation alludes to a number of stories of dreams different monks had of this alluring deity, one among them being Shinran, though in his case, it was in the form of a monk holding a jewel. S/he “promises that if he, Shinran, must ‘violate women,’ the bodhisattva Ngawang Zangpo, trans. Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verses of the

Shangpa Masters 54 (Boulder: Snow Lion, 2003), p.72. Sarah Alizah Fremerman, Divine Impersonations: Nyoirin Kannon In Medieval Japan (Sanford 55 PhD Dissertation, 2008), p.7, 8 Fremerman, Divine Impersonations, 14.56 Page of 19 29

will take the form of the jewel woman, stay with him for a lifetime, and lead him to the Pure Land.” Many other of the other dreamers have similar promises of salvation through a woman 57 deity, and these dreams also often have association with the imperial signs of the mirror, sword and jewel, and with the sovereignty of the emperor. This compelling image continued throughout the years, and even in the first official Buddhist history of Japan, Kūkai carves a wooden sculpture of Nyoirin Kannon in the image of Nyoi…, a beautiful imperial consort who becomes a nun. After Nyoi, a

consort of the soverign Junna… (786-840 r. 823-833), has a mysterious vision of Benzaiten, she goes off to the mountains, where Kūkai teaches her

various rites associated with Menzaiten and the cittāmaṇi [the wishfulfilling jewel she carries]. In 831 she completes the great hall of the temple Jinjuji… and becomes a nun; at her request, Kūkai carves the temple statue of the bodhisattva Nyoirin Kannon in her image.58 Then, she became a deity

people sought for their wishes to come true, “wishes for protection from demons, wealth, power, fertility—and perhaps even a few monks’ wishes for a beautiful woman who would lead them straight to the Pure Land.” Interestingly, she was not only 59 connected with esoteric Buddhist traditions, but

also with Shugendō, a syncretic Buddhist/Shintō sect focused on mountain asceticism and pilgrimage, through being linked to their main deity. 60 This equation of Shugendō’s main deity and Nyorin is of particular interest because they were mountain ascetics who engaged in pilgrimage or

wandering retreats; certain locations that were sacred to different kami took on an additional characteristic of being pure lands since the kami were manifestations of buddhas (the field of a buddha’s activity is a pure land). They incorporated esoteric Buddhist elements such as mantras and dhāraṇīs into their practices, and it “emphasizes actual asceticism in the mountains on the basis of the esoteric doctrine that all persons possess buddhahood and either may realize their identity with buddha or may ‘in this

Fremerman, Divine Impersonations, p.28.57 Ibid, p.30.58 Ibid., p.49.59 Ibid., p.51.60

very body become buddha.’” They seem somewhat akin to the yogi ascetic in India who lived 61 in charnel grounds, except in Japan it would be in mountains, and like the yogis of Tibet who seek to do religious practice in sacred locations. This (perhaps somewhat distant) connection to the

Dakini through Nyorin is another possible point of comparison between Japanese and Tibetan ascetic traditions, though the stronger point of

comparison is the concept of sacred place, and the idea that performing religious practice at those locations has greater benefits. Fremerman also elaborates on a host of other connections this deity has, being associated with Inari and other fox deities, Amaterasu, the Indian river goddess

Benzaiten who has a dragon-like appearance, the daughter of the dragon king Sāgara who offers a wishfullfilling jewel to Śākyamuni in the Lotus Sūtra. “In the former group, Inari in turn is identified with the former flesh-eating goddess Dakiniten. It is significant that Nyoirin and Dakiniten were both enshrined as the main deities in rites for the protection of the nation,” though perhaps the 62 most important equivalence here is that Nyoirin

is Inari, who is Dakini, who is Amaterasu. This final equivalence is elaborated on in a commentary on the famous myth in which the sun goddess Amaterasu hid behind a rock, which states that at that time she took the form of a fox since astral foxes give off light, which in turn is because

“the astral fox is a transformation of Nyoirin Kannon…” Moreover, the astral fox another name for Dakini-ten. 63 Fremerman hypothosized that the inclusion of these deities in the imperial enthronement ritual “tapped into a widespread belief in a primal source of power that by the fourteenth

century was deemed necessary for the legitimization of imperial rule.” What Teeuwen finds striking about 64 this ritual is its sexual connotations, since the mantra recited expresses “the union of the

Bryon Earhart, “Shugendō, En No Gyȳja and Mikkyō Influence,” in Tantric Buddhism in East 61 Asia. Edited by Richard K. Payne (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2006), p.194. Fremerman, Divine Impersonations, 154.62 Fremerman, Ibid., p.157.63 Ibid., 161.64 Page of 21 29 Kongōkai and Taizōkai mandalas…” The ritual essentially expresses the union between the 65 emperor and the empress, and this interpretation “was not

limited to the heterdox Tachikawa sect; it was very much part of mainstream esoteric thought in both Shingon and Tendai lineages.” This is an important point to make because it is sometimes assumed that Japan did 66 not have a mainstream understanding of the “higher” versions of tantra that emphasized the unity of wisdom and compassion or appearance and emptiness through sexual imagery, or the transformation of desire. One might assume

that since it was on the basis of these teachings that the Tachikawa sect was expelled from Japan, these teachings did not become very widespread, but upon looking at the history of Dakini-ten and the imperial enthronement ritual, this seems not to be the case. Indeed, of particular interest

here is that unlike Tibet, the most important “higher” local deities like Amaterasu and buddhas became totally equated with each other, while in Tibet it seems like most deities with a local history remained relegated to the position of Dharma protector. But there were some additional aspects

to these equations between the primordial buddha and kami that make its version of Shinto/Buddhist tantra (or at least the beliefs associated with their practices) similar to that of Tibet. Because of the unity of afflictive emotions with the mind’s pure nature, there is also a unity between

Dainichi and the malevolent deities that represent those emotions. Of course, for the most part, deities associated with Amaterasu were considered to be emanations of Dainichi, and malevolent kami were usually considered to just be malevolent or subjugated. However, esoterically-inclined monks

developed an interest in these un-tame kami: “It was the technique of tackling (seemingly) unenlightened forces, realizing their source in Dainichi’s universal enlightenment, and then

Teeuwen, “The Kami in Esoteric Thought and Practice,” p.106.65 Teeuwen, Ibid., p.107.66

focusing them in a secret ritual that was at the core of esoteric practice in Japan—or, indeed, of ‘Tantrism’ in general.”67 The ideas expressed at this time, most notably the aforementioned concept that kami are actually superior to the historical Buddha because of being emanations of Dainichi

and thus tantric in nature, eventually allowed for the emergence of a branch of esoteric Shintō connected with the Ise Shrines, Watari Shintō. Watarai Shintō reversed this, and considered kami to the be the origin behind the buddhas. “A single glance at Watarai Ieyuki’s (1256-1351?) digest

of Watarai Shintō, Ruiju Jingi Hongen (1320), which was to prove the most influential and lasting work of this tradition, is enough to reveal that he relied heavily on Reikiki, and more so on in the most secret and crucial part of this work, on the mirrors of the Ise shrines.” This suggests that

68 these radical, tantric notions made it into Watarai Shintō as well. Watarai Shintō had a number of interesting developments, such as explaining that Buddhist monks were not allowed to come to the Ise shrines because kami were closer to Dainichi and thus the absolute, so it should not be

despoiled by Buddhism. They also stated, “All Buddhism originated from Dainichi Nyorai. Our gods are the spirits (tamashii) of Dainichi Ryorai and therefore have no Original Source (honji). Since the Buddha and the Buddhist teachings come forth from [the gods of Ise], Buddhism and monks are of

no use at the shrines.” They also continued previous work of translating Buddhist thought into Shintō idiom, 69 thought this time from the Shintō perspective. They took the Buddhist association of Toyokie kami with the Moon Deva, for instance, and transferred it into Shintō myth; they were inspired by the Ryōbu idea that the Outer Shrine of Ise was the Kongōkai maṇḍala,

Teeuwen, Ibid., p.110.67 Ibid., p.112.68 Mark Teeuwen, Watarai Shintō: An Intellectual History of the Outer Shrine in Ise (Leiden: 69 Research School CNWS School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies, 1996), p.106. Page of 23 29

thus establishing a connection between Toyouke [the deity of their shrine] and Dainichi…. This method of ‘translating’ Buddhist conepts into Shintō idiom by recreating them on the basis of the texts of Shintō orthodoxy was a new invention of the Watarai, and one of their greatest contributions to

Shintō thought… this technique was applied to both mythology and ritual.70 Of interest here is the Nakatomi Harae Kunge, which explained a method or ritual purification, but using some Buddhist concepts; it was written by a Buddhist, but it was adopted by Ise Shrine priests as their authoritative commentary on the Nakatomi formula. Sections of 71 it incorporate Buddhist esoteric concepts from a Shintō perspective—for instance, when a priest

holds a ōnusa, a tree branch used for Shintō rituals, it should be understood as the same as a Buddhist divinity holding its vajra. The believer meditates on it as their samaya-gyo, or representation of their vow, and attains instant enlightenment: they are surrounded by twelve gods who will protect him, and lead him to enlightenment through kaji, or union with his deity. Kaji, in turn, is understood to be union in the sense that the

deity represents one’s innermost nature, original enlightenment, and union with the deity means returning to that. They also 72 explain that one must not damage one’s “mind-god,” which is one’s original divine nature that has been darkened by impurities. In closing, what one may gather from all of this is that there are a lot of similarities between Japan and Tibet when it comes to their tantric Buddhist heritage and the way it

interacted with their indigenous beliefs. Both countries have indigenous beliefs that hold their founding royal family to be divine, and have a mythic worldview, informed by both Buddhist and their own principles, that not shows them that their whole world can be realized to be divine.

Tibetans have their gurus, incarnate teachers, relics and sacred locations, but also the philosophical beliefs behind tantric practice that encourage one to see the world as divine

Teeuwen, Watarai, p.56.70 Teeuwen, Ibid., p.90.71 Ibid., p.94.72

because that is how it held to actually be. The Japanese of the medieval period similarly had the notion that their land is a divine land blessed and protected by the kami, who are actually manifestations of buddhas; one is not far away from the source of liberating teachings, but instead close

to it. Moreover, if kami are buddhas, then locations blessed by the kami are pure lands. This counteracted the potentially discouraging notion of the degenerate age. The two cultures also inherit the notion of the ḍākiṇī; though Tibet inarguably received a greater volume of late tantric

literature from India, Japan did receive the concept of the ḍākiṇī as well, and used it in similar ways—it had the wrathful, flesh-eating ḍākiṇī as well as the beneficent kind, and the enlightened. It is quite interestingly tied in with emperor’s ascension, which could suggest to some that Japan is a tantric kingdom.

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